Week 44 Acts 4
I found a few more things that were going on in the church at the end of chapter four:
1. believers were one-in-heart
2. believers were one-in-mind
3. no one claimed that their possessions were private
4. people shared
5. the apostles possessed great power
6. they preached about the resurrection of Jesus
7. God was powerfully at work
8. there were no needy people in the church
9. people with property sold it to help people in need.
I decided to try tidying up Luke’s list by reorganizing it into four ideas:
1. believers were united in heart & mind
2. no one claimed personal ownership (they shared everything. Property was sold and the proceeds were redistributed by the apostles. There were no needy people in the church!)
3. the apostles’ message was the resurrection of Jesus
4. the apostles’ tremendous zip was God’s power at work.
I think my tidying-up project – compartmentalizing Luke’s elements by topic – was likely a mostly bogus way of kidding myself that I was Analyzing the Passage. My big concern about Luke’s mixed-up list probably – in real life circumstances – came together in a pretty seamless way.
Anyway…out of the four items the one about social concern stands out the most. It’s definitely talked about the most (maybe because the ominous Ananias-and-Sapphira story is coming up).
But there it is: if my church isn’t helping people who are in need then my church is acting differently than the church in Acts.
Note: the list is in Acts 4:32-35